Alright boyz - 2004 Presidential Election Thread

[Solecismic]

Checking New Mexico, there are, indeed, bizarre differences in turnout between counties. I believe the results suggest Bush's tiny margin will get a little bigger, but until this is resolved, this state should not be called either way.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Arles

To follow up on my above point, the gap in Pennsylvania is currently 2% (130,700) and the gap in Ohio is 3% (144,215). How can CNN have called Penn, but not Ohio?

Because the Republicans have indicated they are willing to accept the vote there, and not try to dig under every rock to try and help their side and drag this election out for a couple more weeks?

[Abe Sargent]

How Come Fox News and NBC aren't calling this for Bush? CNN, CBS and ABC called Nevada for Bush ten to fifteen minutes ago! With Ohio called on NBC and Fox, Nevada puts Bush over 270, so why not call the election by calling Nevada? Why wait, when everybody, including the AP, has called Nevada (and 100% of precincts are in)? Are they becoming hesitant with Ohio?


-Anxiety

[Havok]

Bush rocks!!!



(sorry, i have nothing constructive to add to this thread)

[Arles]

Originally Posted by Anxiety

How Come Fox News and NBC aren't calling this for Bush? CNN, CBS and ABC called Nevada for Bush ten to fifteen minutes ago! With Ohio called on NBC and Fox, Nevada puts Bush over 270, so why not call the election by calling Nevada? Why wait, when everybody, including the AP, has called Nevada (and 100% of precincts are in)? Are they becoming hesitant with Ohio?


-Anxiety

This is just comical. No one wants to call the race for Bush. Half the networks have Bush winning Ohio. Another half have Bush winning Nevada. Yet, not one network has Bush winning both. This in spite of the fact that both states have a margin of 2-3% and 100% precincts. No one is willing to take that step and call Bush as winning the president, despite the fact the numbers show a Kerry win in Nevada or Ohio is almost impossible.

[sterlingice]

Face it. No news organization wants to be the first to call it, particularly if there is going to be a challenge in Ohio. Democrat, Republican, whatever- I haven't noticed any station calling the race. Why? Because it's much better for ratings, not so much now but in the morning, for all the news organizations. Heck, even for tonight, I bet everyone still viewing this thread (8, which is about 6 or 7 more than anyone at this time of night normally) is still watching tv and that's helping their ratings. This isn't a blue or red thing, it's a green thing.

SI

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

This isn't a blue or red thing, it's a green thing.

Hopefully not like that god-awful idea by CNN to make Ohio a "Green State" for too close to call. That's what you have white undecideds for dumbass. If you're gonna go a 3rd color, at least combine the red and blue and make purple.

Alright, my essay's done. I think I need to go to sleep. Hopefully Kerry will concede by tomorrow night and we can move on.

[Solecismic]

Weird. They all speculate that Bush has won. But I understand that they might want to give Kerry the chance to exit gracefully.

Checking Nevada, there's no reason to suspect Kerry has even a ghost of a chance. Iowa could be called, so could Wisconsin the other way. Only New Mexico has oddities worth looking into. So my map is 281-252 for Bush. And I missed by 59 EVs (Florida, Ohio, Iowa and maybe New Mexico).

[Arles]

I'm with Jim on the result. I also agree with SI on the networks. For that reason, I am hitting the sack.

Nice to see FOFC back up and hopefully this will all be sorted out by the morning.

[sterlingice]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry, CNN just made me laugh in my sleep adled state. After talking about Rove and how he was pressuring networks to call New Mexico, they call it... Too Close to Call!

This is too petty and funny, especially considering how tired I am. CNN basically just said "Fuck you, Rove. You want us to call New Mexico? Ok, we'll call it... GREEN!"

SI

[dacman]

Funny how Ohio and New Mexico are too close to call, but Wisconsin and Iowa remain white. Hmmmm...talk about being the news instead of reporting it.

[Axxon]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Heck, even for tonight, I bet everyone still viewing this thread (8, which is about 6 or 7 more than anyone at this time of night normally) is still watching tv and that's helping their ratings. This isn't a blue or red thing, it's a green thing.

SI

You'd be wrong. No TV at work.

If I had access to one I'd be watching though so you're not completely right, only mostly right.

[CraigSca]

Arlie,

I think the reason they are calling PA and not Ohio is because of the provisional votes (something PA does not have according to my knowledge). While I agree that is seems the # of provisional votes left outstanding will not make up the difference for Kerry in Ohio, that's the only reason I can think why the networks haven't called it yet.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

Arlie,

I think the reason they are calling PA and not Ohio is because of the provisional votes (something PA does not have according to my knowledge). While I agree that is seems the # of provisional votes left outstanding will not make up the difference for Kerry in Ohio, that's the only reason I can think why the networks haven't called it yet.

If I remember correctly, the provisional votes are a result of the Help America Vote Act and not limited to Ohio.

[CraigSca]

Ok...provisional voting just seems odd to me. Here in Delaware, we had to get a court order to have my wife vote (she registered at the DMV 4 months ago, but never received her card). If this provisional vote thing is true, we apparently jumped through a lot of hoops for nothing.

[Sharpieman]

Man, I finally got access to the boards. We will know that Bush won Ohio in a matter of hours. The results could be posted as soon as this afternoon but even maybe on thursday. It seems the exit polls that predicted Kerry as a big winner were totally wrong and this allowed Bush to win the White House. We have a clean sweep by the Republicans and now they have the Senate, House and Presidency. It ought to be very interesting which direction Bush goes; will he try to unite the country by adopting a more bipartisan approach, or since he has major support in the house and senate, will he go conservative and Rip the Democrats plans for healthcare, taxes, tort reform to shreads. The Democrats and their supporters have to be devastated by these losses. I think that the Democrats are going to have to adopt a southern democrat to run in the Presidential election in 2008, because there is no way a northerner can win the Presidency.

On a more personal note, although I'm a registered independent I really wanted to see Bush lose. Wow, I just noticed something, I didn't say I really wish Kerry would win, but I really wanted to see Bush lose. Kerry was obviously not the best canidate that the Democrats could stand behind. He was pretty indecisive and his campaign was run horribly. The Republicans were much more organized and precise in their attacks and strategies. I really hope Bush becomes a little more moderate (not spending-wise, I wish he would cut the costs) on the economy and social issues. However, I doubt this will happen, I believe he'll probably introduce very conservative reforms, making the tax cut permanent, trying to get that ban on gay marriage (oh yea thats important) and probably continuing to be really pro-business and anti-environment. Its interesting to note that no war President has ever lost an election. I think this factored into it a bit, many people still believe there is a connection between al-qaeda and Saddam and some believe that there were WMD. Besides, Kerry really wasn't strong enough on the Iraq war and on terrorism. You know there is a big similarity between 9/11 and this election. That is, after 9/11 the Republicans and Bush had a real chance to unite the country and really bring America together, but they went the opposite direction. Now, since the Republicans have control of everything, they have a chance to make reasonable reforms and make this country better, hopefully they realize this. However, I highly doubt it and the Republicans will probably think its an opporunity to make conservative reforms. This isn't to say that conservative reforms are not reasonable, actually they are, and liberal reforms are unreasonable too, on almost every issue there is a healthy medium and hopefully the Republicans don't screw stuff up.

Just my thought, congrats to President Bush and the Republican party.

[randal7]

OKay, here's another one similar to the Ohio\Pennsylvania thing:

Wisconsin (99% reporting)

Kerry 1,480,256
Bush 1,466,963

13,000 difference, called for Kerry


Iowa (100% reporting)

Bush 741,325
Kerry 725,700

14,000 difference in a voter pool 1/2 the size, too close to call.

Is there some wierdness in Iowa like there supposedly is in New Mexico? Why is this too close to call?

[Ksyrup]

Fox and NBC refuse to call the election for Bush in case they are wrong. And instead of having a repeat of 4 years ago when they called a state for someone and then took it off the board, they are refusing to call the rest of the states and leaving Ohio as Bush to avoid looking like they didn't learn a lesson from 2000. CNN and others, meanwhile, who didn't call Ohio, are sticking by that non-call and are free to call the other states, because it won't give either party the win.

From what I heard this morning, Bush is up by more than 140K in Ohio, and 77 out of 88 counties have reported 130K provisional ballots. Now, I don't know what counties are left, and maybe they are big, but even assuming there's 175K provisionals, (a) they would all have to be certified, and (b) Kerry would have to win around 155K-160K of those votes to take Ohio (depending on overseas ballots). There's just no way. But those who have the info on what counties those provisionals are coming from will know better whether the trend would be for Kerry in those votes. Still, I bet there wasn't a single county where Kerry took 85-90% of the vote that he would need to pull this off.

The votes will be counted in 11 days regardless - so this isn't about not allowing votes to count - and I hope the Kerry camp realizes this and says that even when those votes are counted, they still won't win. I think Bush's camp is right to push on this, for one simple reason - give 10,000+ lawyers 11 days to start fires elsewhere, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Sharpieman

... trying to get that ban on gay marriage (oh yea thats important)

AJC exit polling showed "moral concerns" to be a larger issue among Georgia voters than Iraq or terrorism. And every state that voted on the issue yesterday passed it (unless something changed dramatically after I crashed around 330 am) including some Kerry states.

However, I highly doubt it and the Republicans will probably think its an opporunity to make conservative reforms.

If it isn't, then the next four years are meaningless domestically. And I don't much think too many people who just worked this hard on something this important are going to sit by & let their efforts be rendered meaningless ... and if that does happen, you'll see the GOP losing Congressional seats in 2006.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

The votes will be counted in 11 days regardless -

Are you sure about that? Lord knows, it was so late last night that I could have easily misunderstood, but if I followed the guy in charge of their elections correctly (their Sec of State?), then those ballots will only be counted IF there's more provisional ballots than the margin of victory.

Now, that said, I haven't heard (and hopefully someone here has) whether the certified ballots will be counted even if the margin is mathematically insurmountable.

[Ben E Lou]

Anyone been to the Democratic Underground web site last night or this morning? I'm about to check it out. I'll bet there's some pretty good UIC going on there right about now...

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Kerry and Edwards risk some longtime fallout with this strategy. So far, the networks are cooperating by assuming hanky-panky with the vote reporting in New Mexico. And some of them by not calling Ohio itself.

At some point, they need to assess the provisionals (because there's no way they're getting anything but a slightly bigger deficit with the live vote tally) and decide if there's even a tiny chance they will win based on a fair counting.

What's going to happen when these provisionals are assessed is that people are start checking into each vote, and they're going to find dead people, houses with 100 residents, fictional people, etc... and the Republicans are going to have a field day with it. Meanwhile, mathematically, it's still not going to help Kerry all that much.

The result: people across the country are going to see the Democrats as whiners who can't accept even a fair election. So much has already been made of the bizarre ACORN practices when registering voters.

Once Kerry and his team have assessed what really happened with the vote, they need to make a good decision on this. Edwards' assertion that they will "fight" for every vote has me worried that they may tilt at windmills and draw this out for weeks unnecessarily.

Agreed on all counts. The final difference in Ohio is 136,221 votes. Even if there really were 250k provisional ballots, do they really think well over 75% of them are going to Kerry?

Lets look at some of the lessons learned in this election:

Don't pay attention to polls, because Americans change their minds on an hourly basis.

Don't trust exit polls.

More people support and still support the war in Iraq than many people want to believe.


If you're a network, quickly forget the first two lessons before the next election season.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Are you sure about that? Lord knows, it was so late last night that I could have easily misunderstood, but if I followed the guy in charge of their elections correctly (their Sec of State?), then those ballots will only be counted IF there's more provisional ballots than the margin of victory.

Now, that said, I haven't heard (and hopefully someone here has) whether the certified ballots will be counted even if the margin is mathematically insurmountable.

I'm pretty sure they have to be counted if they are found to be legit, but maybe I'm wrong. If not, then that's even more reason to call this election now. I thought that talk was just about whether they would make a difference. But hell, it was late and I thought I was seeing things all night (like a Bush win), so maybe I was hearing things as well.

[Ksyrup]

I find it amazing that with all of the attention given to young voters, the same percentage of 18-25 year olds voted in 2004 that voted in 2000: 17%. More of them voted, but as a percentage of the voters, there was no difference.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I find it amazing that with all of the attention given to young voters, the same percentage of 18-25 year olds voted in 2004 that voted in 2000: 17%. More of them voted, but as a percentage of the voters, there was no difference.

That other 83% should be smacked.

[gottimd]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I find it amazing that with all of the attention given to young voters, the same percentage of 18-25 year olds voted in 2004 that voted in 2000: 17%. More of them voted, but as a percentage of the voters, there was no difference.

That is so dissapointing, me being just out of that age range, I don't understand why or where that age group is when it comes down to voting time. Why wouldn't you want to vote, or do you just want to let everyone else pick someone for you, and then complain about it later? Did they misunderstand the MTV slogan or whomevers slogan it was, to "Vote or Die", and they thought it said "Vote and Die".

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Anyone been to the Democratic Underground web site last night or this morning? I'm about to check it out. I'll bet there's some pretty good UIC going on there right about now...

I've been canvassing all sorts of different boards - political and non-political alike - and I would equate the reaction I've seen to the reaction to the OJ verdict: stunned disbelief, anger, questioning how and why this happened, suggesting improprieties (or, in OJ terms, jury nullification), etc. And some people are simply in denial, thinking they'll pull out Ohio. Even more distressing is the number of Kerry supporters who want him to wage a a full-on war in a number of "close" states to try to steal this election as Bush allegedly "stole" 2000. The hatred is out there, it's very real, it's sickening...but luckily, more than half of the country did NOT vote based on hatred. And I mean that from a "state of our union" manner, not so much because the outcome favored my candidate. It's never a good thing when people vote out of hatred and their will is imposed in that way.

[Aylmar]

I bet Zogby is getting some "encouraging" phone calls this morning.

[Arles]

This is starting to get a little mind-numbing. New Hampshire was called for Kerry with the following:

John F. Kerry - 332,553 -50%
George W. Bush - 323,319 - 49%

DIFF +9,234 (1%)

Yet, Fox and some others are not calling Nevada for Bush:

George W. Bush - 388,963 - 51%
John F. Kerry - 368,458 - 48%

DIFF +20,505 (3%)

Can someone please explain this to me?

[gottimd]

What are the amount of absentee ballots or votes not counted? If the lead is insurmountable than they will call it. Although the lead in one state maybe less than one in another, the one with a bigger margin may have almost every vote in.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Arles

This is starting to get a little mind-numbing. New Hampshire was called for Kerry with the following:

John F. Kerry - 332,553 -50%
George W. Bush - 323,319 - 49%

DIFF +9,234 (1%)

Yet, Fox and some others are not calling Nevada for Bush:

George W. Bush - 388,963 - 51%
John F. Kerry - 368,458 - 48%

DIFF +20,505 (3%)

Can someone please explain this to me?

As I said above, they are not calling it solely because they realize they called Ohio too early, but don't want to be in the position of either (a) appearing to give the election to Bush without Kerry conceding and/or Ohio being determined, or (b) having to pull Ohio off the board and admit to doing the same thing they did 4 years ago with Florida. You'll notice that CNN and other networks that did not call Ohio have called the other states. But the net effect is that no network wants to call the election without Ohio officially decided or Kerry conceding.

So, for Fox, it's a face-saving mesaure predicated solely on having called Ohio.

[Arles]

I see that, but provisional and absentee ballots have a chance of unseating Kerry in New Hampshire and Penn (but it is doubtful). IIRC, Ohio has around 175,000 uncounted provisional/abs/military votes with Bush having a 145,000 vote lead. And, in Nevada, there are 10,000 uncounted with Bush having a 20,500 lead. It's nearly impossible for Kerry to win Ohio (he would nead a combined 92% of the provisional and military ballots) and he would need 210% of the ballots in Nevada to win

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Aylmar

I bet Zogby is getting some "encouraging" phone calls this morning.

Too bad he can't run anymore push polls for his canidate of choice.

[Ksyrup]

I think it is solely related to the Dems challenging the Ohio call. I haven't heard anything out of the Bush camp about the other states. Now, if the momentum starts to pick upfor Kerry to launch a full-scale attack on the Ohio process, it wouldn't surprise me to see Bush fall back on those states to at least question the outcomes.

The voter fraud issue is heating up, at least on the blogs/websites. The latest is that Bush was able to tamper with the voting in states where there are no paper trails for evoting, because as compared with exit polls, states with paper trails are showing a better correlation between exit polls and actual results.

Nevermind that the exit polls appear to be trash and unreliable...

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

As I said above, they are not calling it solely because they realize they called Ohio too early, but don't want to be in the position of either (a) appearing to give the election to Bush without Kerry conceding and/or Ohio being determined, or (b) having to pull Ohio off the board and admit to doing the same thing they did 4 years ago with Florida. You'll notice that CNN and other networks that did not call Ohio have called the other states. But the net effect is that no network wants to call the election without Ohio officially decided or Kerry conceding.

So, for Fox, it's a face-saving mesaure predicated solely on having called Ohio.

I'll take this one a step farther: I wouldn't be shocked to find out that CNN/FOX/ABC/MSNBC have been in communication with one another on this one. If any one of them were to put Bush over 269 at this point, they'd *all* feel like they needed to call the election for him. On the off chance that they're wrong, they'd all end up with egg on their faces once again. Instead, they've decided to make it clear anyone paying attention that Bush will win the election, without any one of them calling it for him. I have some doubt that it is a coincidence that two of the majors have it called one way, and two others another way.

[gstelmack]

To take this on a slightly different tack: anyone else try to watch CBS last night and end up switching to another network just because Dan Rather looked completely lost, stumbling over lines, and generally like he just can't hack the fast pace of election coverage?

[JAG]

I find it amazing that talking heads keep talking about Bush being more concilatory towards Democrats during his second term. Er, why would we expect that? The Republicans basically got a mandate in this election.

[stevew]

Man it is sad that this is the last election that Brokaw will be running for NBC.

[Cuckoo]

Now, more important than all this President crap, is that the referendum passed 54-46 percent in Arlington for the Dallas Cowboys to begin building their new stadium.

[CraigSca]

I noticed that Dan Rather was the king of simile/metaphor last night. "This race is hotter than the Devil's anvil!"

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

How can Hawaii with 0% of the precints reporting report Kerry as a weiner?

[The Afoci]

Terry Bosch lost an important shot at winning by only gathering one vote for his write in campaign. He figured he had his girlfriend, mother, father, son, and his own vote at least. Sadly, like usually, he only came thru for himself...

[Cuckoo]

I also want to give a little credit to Jim. It would have been very easy for him after his predictions to simply disappear once the results came in far different than many, including myself, predicted. But he left himself in the game and faced his miscalculations. As a guy who may have questioned buying a political game from him before, I offer my kudos.

Now, to Delebar, who seemed downright giddy earlier in the day, but has been noticeably absent of late, I will only offer the following gloating... "Four More Years!"

[Buccaneer]

Don't pay attention to polls, because Americans change their minds on an hourly basis.

Don't trust exit polls.

That's what I started off the evening saying but I got slammed. I defer to my friend from Northern Colorado.

Case in point: Jim is a lot smarter than I and he said, "Early exit polls show this is going to be rout for Kerry. States are in play that I figured were safe for Bush, like Virginia. Pennsylvania shows a 20-point Kerry lead."

[Cuckoo]

Originally Posted by Cuckoo

Now, to Delebar, who seemed downright giddy earlier in the day, but has been noticeably absent of late, I will only offer the following gloating... "Four More Years!"

Disclaimer: By the way, this was meant in jest, in good fun, despite the fact that I've had my share of disagreements with Delebar.

[Buccaneer]

Here was my prediction (from Ben's Place)

Prediction: A repeat of 2000 with a slightly different twist. We will not know for some time due to absentee and overseas ballots and a controversy in one state (not FL).

I should have said "provisional" and not absentee/overseas but it's close.

[Arles]

Just an FYI, I just heard that 20,000 of the provisional votes have been checked in Ohio and they have gone Bush by a 2/3 margin. This could be mathamatically impossible for Kerry by lunchtime.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

To take this on a slightly different tack: anyone else try to watch CBS last night and end up switching to another network just because Dan Rather looked completely lost, stumbling over lines, and generally like he just can't hack the fast pace of election coverage?

How is that any different than anything he has done the past 20 years? To me, ever since he took over from Walter, he has been jittery and nervous in that seat. No one his ratings have bombed since then.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by JAG

I find it amazing that talking heads keep talking about Bush being more concilatory towards Democrats during his second term. Er, why would we expect that? The Republicans basically got a mandate in this election.

Lord, I hope not. There is nothing worse than any form of federal govt mandates.

To use a football analogy as someone did earlier, I believe that despite throwing 2 TDS and 4 INTS in the first half (4 years), the QB is not going to be pulled. The first half score started (up until late 2002) out as a rout but by the end of the half, they let the opponents catch up. I still say we change the rules of the game and allow more teams to play on the field.

[gottimd]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Lord, I hope not. There is nothing worse than any form of federal govt mandates.

To use a football analogy as someone did earlier, I believe that despite throwing 2 TDS and 4 INTS in the first half (4 years), the QB is not going to be pulled. The first half score started (up until late 2002) out as a rout but by the end of the half, they let the opponents catch up. I still say we change the rules of the game and allow more teams to play on the field.

Time is about to expire and the refs are reviewing the last play of the game (a late TD pass by the oppositions QB, WR looks like he was juggling the ball), and are likely to make a decision soon. By the looks of the replay, it doesn't look good for the opposition.